Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and the like. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations or NodeBs that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a base station via downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station.
The UE may be a machine type communication (MTC) device and the wireless communication network may be a heterogeneous network with macro cells and also small cells (e.g., low power nodes or LPNs). In some instances, the coverage of the small cells may be overwhelmed by that of the macro cells and the MTC device may find it difficult to associate with a small cell. Thus, it may be desirable to use systems, methods, and devices that address the effects of strong macro cells in a heterogeneous network to enable an MTC device to associate with a small cell.